The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 16 - Memoirs Of A Killer

"He doesn't hear me." Hope sighed.

After introducing her grandfather, she had repeatedly pulled his sleeve but with no success in capturing his long lost attention.

"My mum said-" She began, "-that people can lose their ability to hear as they become older." She tugged at his sleeve once again. "I guess grandpa has gotten old."

She didn't know. Where she was, where I was, how the wondrous world of dreams worked. She didn't know. As I knelt down I pressed my fingers against the asphalt to prevent myself from tipping over - The ground swayed like the most rickety of pirate ships and I had never been one for the seas.

"Do you know-" I waved my hand for her to come closer, "-where you are?"

The little girl stopped in front of me and raised her chin to gaze down the street. To the left, to the right, her eyes stopping at every sign that she could find.

"Your street?" She smiled. "I'm guessing it's yours since you seem to stop by it a lot."

How to tell someone that they're sleeping? How to tell them that they have been sleeping for quite some time, and most importantly – how do you say it to a child? Hope reached her hand towards me to adjust the glasses on the tip of my nose.

"Just like how grandpa doesn't hear me," she began, "you normally don't see me. I guess that's why you need glasses."

The laugh I had let out carried an odd mixture of despair and genuine amusement. She didn't know. Of her coma, of the dream world. She didn't (and she needn't) know.

The sudden flash before my eyes was strong enough for me to fall back. I lost my breath as my tailbone had hit against the asphalt and for a split second, and a split second only, the dream world was no more.

A darkness blacker than night itself seemed to surround me. No color, no light. No emotion, no sensation. No time, space or existence. For one split second, I ceased to exist.

'Clear!' A doctor's voice from the real world came through to me.

The tingling numbness by my tailbone was my first sensation, followed by the pressure of my own hand against my forehead. Then came the sweat that trickled against my palm, the emotions of worry and anxiety that clung onto my chest, along with the only sounds of the world I was in - the breaths of Hope, the breaths of me.

The scenery of the dream world came back to me through my slow blinks. Still on the street - with the little girl now gazing down at me. I was still not awake, yet alive, it seemed.

"My grandpa had one of those!" Hope exclaimed. "It's pretty!"

One of what? I was still leant back, keeping myself up with my elbows. Next to me laid the pocket watch, lid opened and arrow shining brightly.

Her grandpa had had one of those. Of course he had...

I pushed myself back up to my feet, studying the arrow as it flickered back and forth by north; north in this scenario being the door right next to us. I sighed.

The eyeless bunny by the lamppost was back; his haunting contour a reminder that time was ticking by dangerously fast. He leant to the side, his buff body disappearing behind the thin lamppost as if by magic. I shook my head - As much as I wished to help the girl, I wouldn't be able to do so in this state of mind.

"Where are you going?" She asked as I had taken another step to the door.

I turned around slowly, firming my grip around the pocket watch. She didn't seem lost or scared; she was dealing with this world much better than I ever had. The tiny girl embodied courage the size of a giant; certainly a one-eighty turn from me and my trembling knees.